Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam

By Hubert Howe Bancroft


Some Cities and San Francisco

There had been some discussion as to improving and beautifying the city
of San Francisco prior to the catastrophe of April 18th. Landscape
architects had been consulted, proposals considered, and preliminary
plans drawn. Therefore when on that day the city was swept by fire,
obviously it was the opportune moment for the requisite changes in the
rebuilding. For a brief period enthusiasm waxed warm. It helped to
mitigate the blow, this fencing with fate. Let the earth shake, and
fires burn, we will have here our city, better and more beautiful than
ever-and more valuable-an imperial city of steel it shall be, and thus
will we get even with the misfortunes of this day.

Reform in the rebuilding was needed, whatever should be the scale of
beauty or utility decided upon. Fifty years ago the elevating influences
of tasteful environment were not so highly appreciated as now, and all
large cities are fifty years old or more. All large cities, as a rule,
had their beginning with narrow, crooked streets and mean houses. In
Europe and Asia there are aggregations of humanity whose domiciles have
remained unchanged, one might almost say uncleansed, for hundreds or
thousands of years, or ever since their mythical beginning, save only
for the covering of the debris of dead centuries.

These ancient towns, mostly offspring of feudalism, begun under castle
walls and continued after walls and castle had crumbled, as their area